


Hold Me Tighter (Let It Bleed)

by 221BroadwayIron



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Cutting, Gen, Irondad, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Self-Harm, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221BroadwayIron/pseuds/221BroadwayIron
Summary: “Hey, hey, Pete, listen to me, okay? You’re okay, you’re okay. Can you repeat that for me, buddy? You’re okay.”----------Or, after a rough patrol, Peter goes back to an old coping mechanism which scares the living daylights out of Tony and Natasha can’t help but blame herself for it.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 320





	Hold Me Tighter (Let It Bleed)

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in progress for the better part of a year. It's a little darker than what I usually write, and my first time writing canon-aged Peter, so I kept getting stuck, but now it's finally finished! 
> 
> Hope you like it, and let me know if there's anything wonky!

“Boss,” FRIDAY echoed through the lab, “Mr. Parker has returned from his patrol.”

“Good, that’s good,” came Tony’s distracted voice floating out from underneath one of his antique cars. He finished splicing several wires together and reappeared, patting DUM-E on the arm. The bot beeped appreciatively and dropped the tray of tools he had been holding. “Um, hey, pick those up,” Tony shot over his shoulder, now striding to the other side of the lab. “Where is he?”

“Mr. Parker is currently in his room.”

“Ask him to pop down here once he’s changed, would you, FRI?”

“Yes, Boss,” the AI replied.

“Thanks, I needed to ask his opinion on DUM-E’s new coding and then we’ve got those updates…” His voice trailed off as he began pulling up a flock of new holograms and schematics over his main desk, flicking through them fast enough to make a lesser man nauseous.

A moment later, FRIDAY spoke again, “Boss, Mr. Parker is not responding.”

Tony accidentally opened two of the wrong windows in shock and sent a third spinning like a top with his elbow. “He _what_? Elevator, _now_!” Abandoning the holo-table to deal with later, the man nearly sprinted toward the slowly opening elevator doors. “C’mon, FRI, c’mon, let’s go… What do you mean ‘unresponsive’? Can I get a visual?” he asked, squeezing through the half-opened doors, phone already in hand. 

There were supposed to be protocols for this. Ten million blasted protocols. Tony should have been alerted the moment the kid got even so much as a paper cut, but there was nothing as he rapidly scrolled through the suit’s statistics, waiting for the feed from FRIDAY’s security camera to load.

“Mr. Parker has locked himself into his bathroom, where—” 

“You don’t have cameras, I know, I know. _Seriously_ , Pete? The one place in the whole Tower where I can’t get footage.”

“—He appears to be conscious,” the AI continued. “Karen says he was not injured on patrol, but his vitals are fluctuating, and he is not responding to my prompting.” FRIDAY sounded worried. Was it possible for an AI to get worried? If any one could it would be his. Actually, he might have written that into her personality chip. Had he? There had been so much code, and so many other things going on at the same time, that Tony couldn’t remember what had been what anymore, but actually… 

_Focus, Stark, focus. Peter needs you_.

Mentally, Tony slapped himself in the face, bouncing in place on the balls of his feet. The minute the doors opened onto his penthouse, Tony was dashing down the hall into Peter’s room and banging on the connecting door to the bathroom.

“Hey, Underoos, open up! Peter? Pete, if you don’t open this door in two seconds, I’m blasting it down.” He tapped his watch and the Iron Man gauntlet formed over his hand. “Underoos, this is not funny. Last warning! No? ‘Kay, I’m coming in…” 

The gauntlet whined and a blast from his repulsor made quick work of the wooden door. Tony stumbled through the smoking hole in two steps before his eyes landed on the figure collapsed against the bathtub.

* * *

Blood, that was the first thing that registered. 

The suit was half-off and Tony could see scarlet rivulets painting the inside of Peter’s arm from three cuts near his elbow. Drips from them spattered the floor. The contrast was shockingly violent against the clean white tile, but that couldn’t have been what was wrong. The cuts were small, and thanks to Peter’s super healing, two of them already looked half a day old. The third was fresh.

Peter was tough, though. He was the type of guy to insist he was fine even with three broken ribs and a black eye. Cuts didn’t slow him down, wouldn’t occupy so much of his attention that he’d even ignore Iron Man blowing his bathroom door off its hinges.

Tony’s eyes raked across the boy, looking for other injuries, anything. There was so much blood, much more than could have possibly come from just a few small cuts. Peter had to be hurt someplace else, had to be, somewhere… It was only then that he noticed the knife. 

Clutched in Peter’s right hand and glistening with red was a black dagger.

* * *

Tony could have sworn he felt the entire world screech to a halt as ice raced through his limbs and froze his lungs. Peter… Peter, _his_ Peter was slumped in the bathtub with a knife and blood draining down his arm.

“What the HECK are you doing, Parker?”

In slow motion, the knife began to move towards his outstretched arm again, and Tony sprang forward. With one hand, he wrenched the dagger out of Peter’s unresisting grip and sent it clattering to the floor. The fingers of his other hand tilted the kid’s head up so that he was forced to look at him.

“Peter? Buddy?”

He was covered in a sheen of sweat mixing with the half-congealed blood, his eyes unfocused and staring straight through Tony. Without the knife, his body was quiet and still. The silence was unnerving—normally Peter never shut up, constantly rambling about whatever came through his head. A quiet Peter was _wrong_.

“Hey, Underoos,” Tony said softly, fighting to keep his voice even as he crouched down next to the boy, “let’s get you down to the MedBay, okay? Have Bruce take a look at your arm?”

_And check if there’s anything else_ , he added to himself. He had a growing suspicion, though, that most of it wasn’t actually Peter’s blood. Tony tried not to think about what might have happened while the boy was patrolling; his anxiety was acting up enough as it was.

There was no sign Peter had heard the man Still, he didn’t resist when Tony pulled him to his feet and draped the uninjured arm over his shoulders.

“Hey, FRI?”

“I have already taken the liberty of alerting Dr. Banner. He is preparing the MedBay as we speak,” came the voice from the ceiling. “The elevator is holding for you.”

“Atta girl.”

They had reached where the bathroom door used to be (“Don’t worry about that, I can get it replaced for you by tomorrow,” rambled the billionaire), when Peter’s entire body started to tremble like a baby bird. 

“It’s okay, kid. I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Tony reassured, pulling Peter more firmly against his side even as he dragged the kid along. They needed to be in the Med Bay right now, with Bruce and people who knew what to do in situations like these.

In the hallway, Peter began to whimper, quiet little noises that almost broke what was left of Tony’s heart. He rubbed his hand along the boy’s arm, which was covered in goosebumps. It left a trail of rapidly vanishing warmth behind it. “Shh, buddy. You’re alright, you’re alright. Shhh, shh, I’ve got you.” 

Med Bay, Med Bay, Med Bay.

“M-Miss’r Stark?” came a quiet, shaking voice. The fingers of his uninjured arm picked at the shoulder of Tony’s shirt.

Tony gave him a squeeze, and replied, “Yeah, Pete?”

The boy blinked. “Wha-what…” 

And then Peter must have caught sight of his bleeding arm because his next words came out in a frantic, almost unintelligible rush: “Oh. OH. Oh. Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no NO. I— what did I— I’m sorry. Mr. Stark, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I swear I didn’t. I promise I didn’t mean it, Mr. Stark. I can’t believe I… I… What did I do? What did I do? I’m sorry. Mr. Stark, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

The boy was almost hyperventilating—No, he _was_ hyperventilating—by that point, and Tony eased him down (finally!) onto one of the Med Bay beds as quickly and as gently as he could. Taking the deepest breath he could manage to steady himself, the man took Peter’s face in his calloused hands, rubbing a grounding thumb over his cheek bone and forcing the boy to look him in the eyes.

“Hey, hey, Pete, listen to me, okay? You’re okay, you’re okay. Can you repeat that for me, buddy? You’re okay.” Behind him, he heard Bruce's footsteps in the hall, but all his attention was on helping Peter and trying to keep himself strong.

“I-I’m okay, I’m okay… okay, I got it. I’m okay,” Peter repeated breathlessly. A hand tangled into his sweaty hair, tugging absently at the locks. Tony gently pulled it away.

“That’s great, kiddo. And I need you to breathe, can you do that for me? Just in and out, in and out… There you go. You’re doing great, Underoos. Lay back and keep breathing, alright? Brucie-bear’s going to give you a little check up, but I’ll be back before you know it. Okay? Does that sound okay, bud?”

Peter’s first breath was more of a gasp but he nodded a few times, closing his eyes and slumping backwards to meet the lumpy Med Bay pillow. “Yeah, y-yeah, I can do that.”

“Great, keep breathing just like that, alright?” Peter nodded again, and Tony brushed a hand over the kid’s hair—The way he’d been yanking on it left him looking a little bit like a porcupine—before standing up. Tony’s breath hitched at the idea of leaving the kid alone for even a second, but he needed to get out. He could feel it clawing at his chest.

Bruce was waiting in the doorway, a worried look on his face. Tony paused next to him, saying in a quiet voice, “Knock him out for me, will you? Use Cap’s stuff and just, just get him to sleep for an hour or two, okay? He needs it. But don’t— Make sure some one’s here with him, in case…” 

Though Tony _had_ left Peter in the care of the two most advanced AI systems in the world and that hadn’t stopped him from slicing his arms open. Just the thought made him want to vomit.

“You got it,” came the scientist’s soft reply. “I’ll let you know when he’s awake.”

Tony tried to force a smile. It wasn't very convincing. 

“Thanks, Bruce.”

* * *

In the hall, the billionaire halted, bracing himself against one too-white wall, and attempted to slow his heart rate. Traitorously, it kept thumping uncomfortably strong and fast in the billionaire’s throat. Too much. He had a heart condition, dangit, and this was not helping. One hand clenched convulsively around the black dagger he was now carrying.

_Where had that come from? Had he brought it with them? Tony could’ve sworn he’d heard it fall in the bathtub but then that had been—_

The metal handle dug into his fingers. He could have a panic attack later. He could have a hundred panic attacks later. (He _was_ going to have a hundred panic attacks later). Right now, though, he needed to find Natasha.

Natasha. Natasha. 

_Natasha_.

The assassin rounded the corner at the end of the hall, almost as if he’d summoned her. 

“Stark, Bucky wants the manual for the toaste… Hey, you found the knife I lost! Where—” As he stepped closer, the rapidly drying blood on the blade came into focus, a rusty coating on the ink black metal. Her voice went from friendly to ice cold in an instant. “What have you been doing with it?” She always kept her knives spotless. “Tony…”

“Not me,” the man replied in a strained voice, “Peter.”

Nat knew the way that her heart sank to somewhere around her feet didn’t show on her face, and she was grateful. Even so, it made her chest feel empty and hollow. Uncomfortable. “Tony, what was Peter doing with my knife?” 

“He…” Tony swallowed forcefully. “He was… cutting… himself.”

* * *

Nat left. 

Fled.

Black Widow did not flee; KGB assassins did not flee; a graduate of the Red Room did not flee.

Natasha fled.

* * *

It was Clint who came to find her later. At least he was smart enough to give her time to control herself first. And at least it wasn’t Tony. She didn’t think she could handle being in the same room as the look he had been wearing when they met in the hallway. But now Natasha was sitting serenely in the training gym, hurling pitch black fragments of a shattered dagger into the heart of the target on the far wall. They were small pieces, irregular shaped, very difficult to throw with any accuracy.

Bullseye.

“‘Tasha…”

“Don’t talk to me.” 

Another bullseye.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Slightly to the left of the last one.

She never was one for conversation, even when she was in a good mood. Clint let out a breath and sat next to her on the floor, resting one hand carefully on her shoulder blade. Natasha leaned into his touch for a brief second before picking up another shard and toying with it between her fingers. The way it caught the light slanting in from the high windows was mesmerizing. It almost glittered. 

With one sharp movement, she drew it across her skin, so that in its wake grew a trail of crimson droplets. It didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected it too.

“‘ _T_ _asha_! You can’t—” Clint tried to wrestle the metal away from her, but it was already embedded in the target next to the others. Second ring, quivering in place.

Voice even and dead, she whispered, “I had to see what it felt like.”

She did not let Clint hug her.

* * *

“Tones—”

“Tony, honey you need to breathe…”

But he couldn’t, his lungs were stuck. 

_Peter_ —

“—on, man, you got this. It’s just a—”

“Deep breath in and…”

_Peter. Peter. His Peter with arms and legs covered in slashes, red, too much red, draining onto slick tiles. But he couldn’t help, nothing he could buy, no bad guy to beat up. Peter was the bad guy. His Peter, he did this. He did this, he did this, he did this._

_Helpless._

He coughed, choking on the metallic scent of blood. Hands clawed at his chest.

_You’re losing him._

“I think we’re losing him—”

“Tony, can you hear me?”

_Losing him, you’re losing him, losing him, losing him—_

"—get lost in—"

_Lost him._

_You lost Peter._

He gagged.

* * *

When Peter awoke, it was to the brush of a cool hand over his bangs and coming to rest for a moment on his forehead. Huh. Was he sick?

“Miss’r Stark?” the boy mumbled. If he felt weird, it was almost a given that Mr. Stark was hovering close by. His muscles were uncomfortably tight and his head felt fuzzy, like it was stuffed full with cotton. Or warm socks. Those were fuzzy, too. Or maybe that one blanket with the funny moose on it—

“No, buddy, it’s just Bruce,” came a soft voice and the hand left. Too bad, it had felt nice. He wanted it back, even if it wasn’t Mr. Stark. Peter blearily forced his eyes open to say so and found Dr. Banner watching him from the side of the bed. He looked apologetic.

_Bed._ Not his bed, not his room. 

Med Bay. 

Was he hurt?

Mr. Stark was not going to be pleased about this.

“Dr. Banner? What— Where’s Mr. Stark? Why—” He broke off when he lifted an arm to rub his scratchy eyes and noticed the bandages wrapped around it. “W-what did I— No. Did I—” Peter’s hand scrabbled at the wrappings, trying to tear them off until Bruce reached out to stop him before he found the edge.

“I think Tony wants to talk with you. Can I call him to come down here?” Bruce’s voice was as gentle and calming as it always was, but it did nothing to abate Peter’s rising panic.

“Wha… Yeah, yeah, h-he can come. I… I— Dr. Banner, I—”

“Breaths, buddy, take deep breaths. It’s just Tony; he’s not scary.”

“I’ll have you know I’m _very_ scary. Terrifying, even,” Mr. Stark interrupted, striding into the room full of his usual confidence. There was no indicator that he’d spent the last two hours having panic attack after panic attack on the living room floor while Steve, Pepper, Rhodey, and Sam all tried to talk him down. His media face was on, one that even Peter couldn’t read, one he wasn’t used to seeing directed at himself. Anxiety flooding his body, he stared at the blanket on his lap, even when Mr. Stark sat on the bed and plunked a hand onto his legs.

“Pete? Peter? What’s goin’ on up there, kiddo?” 

Silence. His mind had gone absolutely blank, except for the tingling undercurrent making his fingers shake.

Tony’s thumb ghosted over the boy’s knee. “We can help you, Pete, but I’ve got to know what’s going on. I saw Karen’s video from patrol and—”

Patrol.

A man. Gunshots. Blood. Too much blood. 

No pulse.

Screaming, screaming, screaming.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Mr. Stark was still talking, but Peter couldn’t hear him. What had been an undercurrent of anxiety flooded through his body drowning out everything else. It felt like being under the building again. Worse. There wasn’t enough air, he couldn’t breathe, rocks dug into him… Only now it wasn’t rocks, but his fingernails gouging half circles into his palm. Still, it was the same pain. 

_Did that make sense? That didn’t make sense. Rocks were big. Nothing made sense._

The rough, warm hands of his mentor carefully uncurled his fist. Mr. Stark pressed it against his own chest, next to the arc reactor, so that Peter could feel his even breathing, feel the steady heart beat. The vibration was comforting against his hand.

_One, two, three, four, five_ … 

“—There you go, there you are, Underoos. It’s okay. We’re just at the Tower. You’re okay, you’re okay.”

Peter forced his lungs to let go of one stale breath and suck in another.

“Good job, Peter, you made it, you’re doing great. We don’t have to talk about that right now, okay?”

Shakily, he nodded, eyes still closed.

“But… hey, kid,” Mr. Stark reached out to lift Peter’s chin with a finger and stroked his thumb along the boy’s jawline. “Can you look at me?”

A shake of his head. No. He couldn’t. Couldn’t because looking meant it was time to talk and Peter didn’t want to talk about it. Not patrol, not the cutting. He didn’t even want to think about it. He just wanted to cuddle and watch a movie and pretend the last three hours never happened.

“You’ve gotta look at me, buddy.” Mr. Stark’s wandering finger ran the length of his eyebrow, before both his hands settled in Peter’s lap to take the kid’s in a comforting squeeze. “I promise it’ll be okay, just please open your eyes a little. Look, you even got me to say please. Now that, kid, is something to be proud of.”

Peter’s quiet puff of air might have been the beginning of a giggle. He eased his eyes open to meet Mr. Stark’s warm, brown ones.

“Well, there you are,” the man said as his face crinkled into a smile. “I knew you could do it. I know you don’t want to talk, but I, just…” Here it came. “I need to know about the— the cutting, okay? That’s all. Bruce and I, uh, saw your leg when we took the suit off… You should’ve told me, buddy. We can help you, it’ll all be okay, but you can’t keep hurting yourself, Peter.” Tears were running down Peter’s face now, encouraged by the well-disguised, but still evident tightness in Mr. Stark’s voice, and Tony reached up again to wipe them off.

“N-No,” the boy stuttered, heaving another breath. He halfheartedly tried to bat Mr. Stark’s hand away, which the billionaire promptly evaded. “I… I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ … I don’t know… I was _clean_. I was doing so good, I… I… I can’t believe I… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I’m _sorry_ —” He stumbled to a halt, choking on his own words.

“Shhh, shhh…” Mr. Stark smoothed more tears off the kid’s face and Peter leaned reluctantly into the touch, pressing his cheek into the man’s palm. He needed it, even if Peter hadn’t yet decided whether he wanted it. It wasn’t long, though, before Tony had both arms wrapped securely around the Spider-Kid and was easily settling them against the headboard. Peter allowed him, breath hitching violently as he buried his face into his mentor’s collarbone. He didn’t want Mr. Stark seeing him lose control like that, but he also craved being held. When Ben died, Peter had held May. Nobody held Peter, not the way that Ben would have or that Mr. Stark did. It had just been him.

He couldn’t keep the rest of the tears back any longer and Tony’s gentle words of comfort weren’t helping. They made him feel young. They made him feel cared for.

Peter cried.

* * *

“I w-was clean,” Peter mumbled once his sobs had turned to hiccups and he had won control of his body again.

“Yeah?” Tony murmured, running his fingers through the boy’s chestnut hair. He made no move to shift Peter off of his chest, despite the clamminess of his shirt.

“Yeah.” Peter swallowed and adjusted the position of his cheek against the arc reactor. “I... Af-after Ben I… started… I don’t even know why, it—it helped, I guess. I didn’t have anything e-else— But May found… found out p-pretty fast… I dunno, two or three weeks maybe? She— she wanted me t’ go to a… a therapist. An’ I went, Mr. Stark, I went… It was just, y’know…”

“Therapists are expensive?” Mr. Stark asked. By now, he knew the boy well, especially his frustrating aversion to spending more money than absolutely necessary.

“Yeah,” he replied, blushing a little. “But then I started, like, doing... Spider-Man stuff… And that helped. That was so much better than the… y’know. I didn’t tell May about it, but she could tell I was doing better. She still had me talk to her friend who’s a therapist a couple a times… But it was _fine_ , and I was _clean_ —” Peter’s voice caught and he stopped, fingers once again worrying at the edge of the bandages.

“Hey, hey,” scolded Tony gently, placing his hand over them, “don’t mess with those. Bruce’s got them all nice, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but you don’t want to make Brucie-bear mad. He’s not exactly a teddy bear, despite how much he looks like one.” 

“I resent that,” came the scientist’s voice from down the hall.

That got a wet, almost-laugh out of Peter. Mr. Stark smiled down at him.

“And relapsing—” Peter shuddered at the word, and Tony rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “Sometimes that happens, kiddo. It’s hard, but you gotta know we’ll help you with it, okay? You and I can work on some protocols with Karen and get you back in therapy if you want—”

He was cut off by Peter worming his arms around the man. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. You’re the best.”

“Well,” said Tony, squeezing the boy back, “you’re not so bad yourself, Underoos. Except when you’re scaring me half to death, of course. Don’t do that again.”

Peter pressed the bridge of his nose against the arc reactor’s casing. “Okay.”

“You know, that wasn’t very convincing.”

“Sorry,” the boy giggled. “I will try.”

Mr. Stark’s voice softened. “I know you will. But I also know it’s doomed to failure.”

“Sorry. Can we watch a movie after dinner?”

“You just want to cuddle more.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny that rumor.”

“Hmm, suspicious. But okay.”

* * *

An hour or two later, the faint grinding of the elevator doors filled the quiet gym. When that faded, the only sounds were heartbeats: Peter’s nervous thudding and two others. His eyes darted to a stack of practice mats by the wall, despite already knowing he’d find Clint perched on the top, watching the room. The archer looked over at Nat’s back, the only part of her visible around one of Steve’s super-strength punching bags, then shook his head at Peter and gestured back toward the elevator doors. 

The message was clear: Do not engage.

Normally Peter would have easily complied (Nat was usually nice, but when she wasn’t she was _scary_ ), but today he ignored it and crossed the room on quiet feet. He sat down next to Natasha, self-consciously forcing himself not to fiddle with the bandages still wrapped around his arm. 

(It was excessive, the cuts were probably already healed by now, but Mr. Stark had insisted. Peter figured it was the least he could do to let the billionaire coddle him. Even though Mr. Stark had tried to make a joke out of it, Peter knew just how much he’d scared him and he felt bad about it. He never meant to make the billionaire worried.)

Nat made no indication that she even noticed the spiderling’s presence—though she certainly must have—and the silence stretched from tolerable to awkward to bordering on tense quickly. Peter squirmed, trying to sort out what to say.

“I started when I was 14,” he finally blurted out. He could hear Clint’s sharp hiss of air even from across the room. He doggedly pressed on, despite the fact that his ears were beginning to flame. 

“It was right after my— my Uncle Ben died. I hadn’t met you guys yet, I didn’t even meet Mr. Stark until, like, a year later. So it doesn’t… it doesn’t have anything to do with you, Ms. Natasha, or any, y’know, superhero-y things. At all. I mean, during patrol there w-was… well—” Peter choked and cleared his throat. “—this guy… I, uh… Sorry, I—” He stopped, let out a rush of air, and started over. 

“I found your knife when we were playing ultimate hide and seek yesterday. But it was, like, 2 AM and I didn’t want to bother you and then I forgot and then— All I mean to say is that my… cutting doesn’t have anything to do with you. Ms. Natasha— Nat. I don’t… blame you or anything because it was your knife. And-and Mr. Stark doesn’t either, in case you were worried about that. Which you’re probably not, but still… There you go. It’s just a knife and I— I don’t want… You shouldn’t… I just—I’m gonna, is it okay if…?”

Biting his lip, the teen wrapped both arms around Natasha’s torso. She didn’t pull away, which Peter counted as a win, and he tightened his grip, pressing his forehead against her shoulder with closed eyes. He didn’t move until FRIDAY announced that Tony had dinner ready.

* * *

Long past the time when everyone in the Tower was asleep (or should have been asleep) and FRIDAY had already switched off the main lights, Tony slid out of bed. He was filled with the overwhelming desire to check on Peter, even though he _had_ already done so twice and the boy was certainly sleeping just as soundly as he had been the other times. FRIDAY would have alerted him if that wasn’t the case. Still, he crept out of his room and down the hall. Just to make sure. 

“Lights at 5%,” he whispered and the room was illuminated by a faint glow.

Peter was still out cold, arms flung out and dark hair tumbled across his pillow. His deep, even breathing was a relief, as was the absence of anything sharper than a ballpoint pen in the vicinity. Tony let out a breath and, after a moment scanning for any hint of discomfort in the boy’s body, tiptoes back out of the room, only to immediately run into another body right outside the doorway and stumble back.

“Doing some late night espionage?” Tony asked, regaining his composure before Natasha did.

She just shrugged. The assassin looked much less intimidating in leggings and thick socks and a t-shirt which hung almost to her knees. Tony was pretty sure it had been Steve’s at some point. It had an old SHIELD logo on the front.

“I just wanted to check on him,” Nat said finally in a careful, unreadable voice.

Tony couldn’t help the half smile spreading across his face. “So did I,” he told her, “though I think I’ve already checked on him too many times for it to _not_ be weird. Maybe at this point we should just post a guard.”

He chuckled as he spoke as though it had been a joke, but simultaneously settled down on the carpet, one shoulder leaning against Peter’s door frame. He patted the spot next to him in invitation and, after a moment, Natasha too crossed her legs and sat down. 

“It wasn’t your fault, you know.” Tony said it conversationally to the wall, but from the corner of his eye he could still see every muscle in Nat’s body tense up. “It wasn’t— There wasn’t anything you could have done about it.”

“You’ve been talking with Clint.” She spoke to the wall as well.

“Actually it was, well, it was Peter. We were watching a movie and he just mentioned… Well, you know how much that kid overthinks, but I figured that—just in case—I should make sure you knew his… c-cutting wasn’t your fault. And I don’t think it was. I mean, I don’t blame you for it. Peter seemed to think you thought I blamed you, and I don’t. It was just a… a crappy thing that no— none of us could’ve stopped. So, you know, stop feeling guilty about it.”

At that, Natasha turned to face him, cocking one eyebrow in the closest approximation of detachment she could manage this late at night and while wearing fuzzy cat socks. “It wasn’t your fault either, Tony.”

The man sighed, but didn’t respond. The only person who could possibly trump Tony Stark in the feeling-responsible-for-things-that-weren’t-his-fault category was Peter Parker, and they both knew it. 

It hadn’t been Tony’s fault, though, hadn’t been Nat’s fault, hadn’t even been Peter’s fault. It just _was_.

But it was something they could help Peter fix. They had his back. Peter could get another chance at going to therapy. Maybe he’d get frustrated with it or with them or begin cutting again, but he still had their never-ending support.

And for tonight he had Iron Man and Black Widow standing guard over him.

Tonight, Peter was safe. 

_El fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, comments, criticisms? What did you think?


End file.
